Department of Music

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Craig Vear

Professor in Music & Computer Science, Faculty of Arts

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Biography

I have been a member of both the School of Computer Science and the Department of Music of the University of Nottingham since January 2023.

Between 2011 and 2023 I was a member of the Institute of Creative Technologies and Music, Technology and Innovation Research Group of De Montfort University, as Professor of Digital Performance and Music.

From 2000 to 2011 I was a lecturer then senior lecturer at Exeter, Salford, London South Bank Universities and a research fellow at York University.

Between 1992 and 2003 I worked as a professional musician. During this time worked with pop acts such as Tom Jones, Roddy Frame, Wolfgang Press, and my own band Cousteau which sold over 300,000 records and received awards such as gold Discs. I was also commissioned to write music for South Bank Centre, BBC, English National Ballet, Falkland Islands, and British Antarctic Survey and was awarded an Olivier award for my work in theatre.

Expertise Summary

My research is naturally hybrid as I draw together the fields of music, digital performance, creative technologies, Artificial Intelligence, creativity, gaming, mixed reality and robotics.

I have been engaged in practice-based research with emerging technologies for nearly three decades, and was editor for The Routledge International Handbook of Practice-Based Research, published in 2022.

My recent monograph The Digital Score: creativity, musicianship and innovation, was published by Routledge in 2019, and I am Series Editor of Springer's Cultural Computing Series. In 2021 I was awarded a €2Million ERC Consolidator Grant to continue to develop my Digital Score research.

Research Summary

My current research investigates the intersection of creativity and AI, specifically from a human-centred perspective. My edited volume The Language of Creative AI was published by Springer in 2022.

I also investigate the transformation of the music score and musicianship through computational technologies such as AI, robotics, and networks.

Through this research I am keen to find insights into basic questions of human-AI interaction, innovative processes, creativity and trans-disciplinary collaboration.

Department of Music

The University of Nottingham
Lakeside Arts Centre
University Park
Nottingham, NG7 2RD

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